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For those who have the patience to wade through it, it is well worth that portion of your time you devote to civic responsibility. Understanding what is wrong is the first step to fixing the problem. The report covers four main areas: lawmakers' use of money; the state's campaign finance system; elections law enforcement; and tools available for fighting corruption.

You will likely have your own take-aways from reading the document, if you make the attempt. If you don't, I read it for you.

Here, in no particular order, are a few of my take-aways:

No names: I was disturbed by the commission's decision to release a partial report that made accusations but didn't name any names. I understand they had a deadline to meet, and I understand the potential for future criminal prosecution. But I think the approach left the door open to needless media and public speculation about who the unnamed individuals and corporations involved in the anecdotes were. It might have been better in the long run to wait for a finalized report.

Matthew 22:21: The commission heard testimony from former state Board of Elections Investigator Javan Owens, who "told the Commission that he spent much of 2007 through 2012 playing solitaire and studying the Bible online during work hours." This when the state Board of Elections had a backlog of complaints it wasn't investigating.

There's a temptation to jump on this as yet another example of laziness by a state employee (you've probably heard the old joke: What's blue and gold and sleeps six? A state DOT truck.)

The commission, though, described Owens as "forthcoming, honest and cooperative." The inescapable conclusion from the commission's presentation is that Owens' bosses screwed up royally.

While workers (as the DOT workers poorly portrayed in the joke above) often come out on the short end of such stories, it's often the bosses who are really at fault.

And I must say it's refreshing to see that a state worker was spending his down time in a spiritually productive way rather than other online interests some have pursued.

Campaign finance: The most controversial suggestion in the report is for public financing of political campaigns, which has become a partisan point of contention. The report gives a fair amount of space to dissenters on the commission who wished to dispute this proposal. If you want to learn more about it, the report's section on this is worth reading.

I honestly don't have a strong opinion either way on this yet. Partly because I have a hard time seeing a clear solution in the proposal. I don't know what it's going to solve. I'm perfectly fine with giving some of my tax dollars to political campaigns. I always give on my federal tax return. (My wife usually says "no" when I ask her whether she wants one of her dollars designated this way. She doesn't completely trust that the money will actually go where they say it will. I suspect her view is more representative of the general public than mine.)

Board of Elections: As alluded to above, the state Board of Elections takes a major hit in the commission's report as an ineffectual, politically hogtied agency that doesn't make use of the resources or laws at its disposal. If the commission's report is only half true, the state Board of Elections has a lot to answer for. The commission wants to see a new agency slated with election law enforcement duties. I'm not sure adding to the law enforcement bureaucracy in that way is the best solution. Couldn't we make it a special unit of the State Police? That law enforcement agency has already participated in some election investigations, as the commission report notes.

Don't make the mistake of confusing the state Board of Elections with the Monroe County Board of Elections. They are different animals and serve different purposes. Everything I know about the local operation says that it is a smooth and efficiently run shop.

Gannett Albany Bureau reporter Jon Campbell has written a deeper look at the state Board of Elections section of the Moreland report in a story that we plan to run this weekend. Look for it in print and online at DemocratandChronicle.com.

Prescience: Speaking of our Albany bureau, I would be remiss if I didn't point out that the Moreland Commission report validates much of the work of Bureau Chief Joseph Spector, Campbell and others who have written about various problems with state government. Member items, lawmakers' use of cars and campaign finance problems are all topics thoroughly covered in the past by Spector, a former Democrat and Chronicle reporter, and his team. And the housekeeping political party accounts that the report highlights as a potential problem have been reported on in numerous watchdog reports, both by the Albany bureau and by local reporters.

Where there's smoke: Because of past incidents in Rochester, this sentence caught my eye: "The Commission has observed numerous instances of candidates compensating their relatives for certain campaign jobs and events, paying for such things as expensive clothing and cigars..."

I don't know about you, but I couldn't help thinking about one of the nails that helped sink a certain former airport director. What is this fascination with cigars? I'm a former smoker, and I understand the habit in its many forms. But I've never really understood this sophomoric and Freudian obsession with cigars (see: Bill Clinton). But cigars seem to go hand in hand with a certain piratical attitude that can lead to the kind of ethical lapses as occurred at the airport.

I'm betting most of the alleged abuses cited in the Moreland report didn't start with someone deciding, "I think I'm going to snooker the public taxpayers today." Any more than I think that's what happened at our airport. It's never that clear-cut and usually far more insidious. A person in a position of power who lacks an efficient ethical compass steps over one ethical line, doesn't get hit by a bolt of lightning and thinks there's no harm in doing more of the same.

As with so many other things, you can't outlaw ethical stupidity, any more than you can outlaw any other kind of stupidity. But we need to figure out a way, starting at the top of our state government, to create an atmosphere that doesn't tolerate these kinds of ethical lapses.